


Cups

by moemachina



Series: Final Fantasy Tarot Deck [1]
Category: Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy X
Genre: Drabble, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moemachina/pseuds/moemachina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a tarot deck, the suit of cups signifies water, emotions, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cups

**Author's Note:**

> In 2006, I wrote a series of 79 100-word drabbles about Final Fantasy and the tarot.

**Ace of Cups: Rinoa Heartilly (Final Fantasy VIII)**

Rinoa arrived with a floor-length gown. It had ruffles and bows, but neither survived a brutal surgery in the ladies' room of Balamb Garden.

Cold air hit her bare knees when she walked into the ballroom, and Rinoa stiffened. Maybe this was a mistake? Maybe she wouldn't be able to make contact for the Forest Owls?

Maybe she should have stayed home in her ruffled bedroom.

But it was too late for that. She'd already hemmed her mother's dress. Lives depended on her.

She lifted her chin. When the dark-haired SeeD made eye contact, it wasn't hard to smile back.

****  


**Two of Cups: Elena (Final Fantasy VII)**

Elena had stayed up all night memorizing the employee orientation manual and cleaning her gun.

"--and also the nerve points at the base of the skull."

Tseng looked up from his paperwork. "What did HQ tell you about your new assignment?"

"I'm to replace Agent Reno as a Turk, sir."

Tseng took a long swallow of coffee. "I believe you'll be working with Rude in a strictly...secretarial capacity."

"Oh," Elena whispered. "But...now I know about the carotid artery, sir."

Tseng closed his eyes. "Very good, Elena," he said. "I appreciate your commitment"

"Thank you, sir," she said shyly.

****

  


**Three of Cups: Stiltzkin (Final Fantasy IX)**

Unless you grew up with it -- delivery routes passed from moogle to son, heated debates about the finer points of postal regulations, an uneasy allegiance to Mognet Central -- it could be hard to understand.

Stiltzkin never questioned it. He loved the inky stamps, the sealing wax, and the smell of envelope paste.

That was why he had to go. Every delayed and mangled package was one more terrible blot on his soul, because something or someone was destroying the institution he loved.

They did not try to stop him.

"We'll send you letters!" they said, because they understood.

****

  


**Four of Cups: Jecht (Final Fantasy X)**

He dreamed he was dreaming, and so the dream perpetuated itself like a snake devouring its own tail.

He curled around a broken memory. Yesterday's spires scraped his ribs. He had sailboats in his stomach; he had graveyards in his heart.

His dreams were a chambered nautilus of drowning and dying and dreaming. He sang lullabies to his son; he drank himself insensible; he drowned.

He knew he could wake if someone could show him how.

He dreamed he was dreaming that he was forgotten and forgetting.

And so he drifted along the ocean's bottom, waiting for someone to sing.

****

  


  
**Five of Cups: Cyan Garamonde (Final Fantasy VI)**

Somewhere, there is a train with invisible conductors and spectral porters. An unfathomable engine purrs; haunted brakes chime. It passes many stations -- stations made from braided heather, from broken seashells, from gleaming bones. It makes many stops. It has a cheerful whistle.

Somewhere, there is a wife and a son sitting in a dining car. They are watching the landscape of eternity pass as they eat phantom jelly.

Cyan wakes, as he always does. Tears slide down his face and collect in his ears. It is supposed to get easier with the passage of time.

It doesn't get easier.

****

  


  


**Six of Cups: Onion Knights (Final Fantasy III)**

The Onion Knights want YOU! Are you brave enough to take up a kitchen knife and defend the honor of shallots? Then enlist today!

Restore the world to balance! Protect the crystals! Ride Cid's airship! Contribute to our great culinary cause! Others may tear up at the thought, but YOU have the inner courage and fortitude to join the Onion Knights in their pungent work!

Clap a colander on your head and hoist your cutting board high! Only you can defeat monsters AND prepare a savory gumbo!

Let us go forward TOGETHER!

Apply at the nearest recruiting station or postmaster.

****

  


****

  
**Seven of Cups: Quina Quen (Final Fantasy IX)**   


Quina liked the plays with white-faced princesses the most, even though Quina did not understand what they were singing. Zidane said the songs were about cherry blossoms and doomed love. Quina liked that. Cherry blossoms were delicious to Quina.

Backstage, Zidane was struggling into his dress when Cinna burst in.

"The floral screen is missing pieces! And there's drool!"

"And?" Zidane asked as he adjusted his tiara.

"And it's in the next scene!"

"Calm down. We'll just use the dawn backdrop. Now where is my face paint?"

Up on the catwalk, Quina ate rice-powder paint and dreamed of wisteria maidens.

****

  


  


**Eight of Cups: Chappu (Final Fantasy X)**  


something like a storm  
we all kept trying to wake  
bodies on the tide

a sunburned brother  
peeled bananas, songs, blitzball  
mother myths and snores

her skin is salty  
seagulls scream above the bluff  
she buckles back up

"So, Lu was sayin'...  
And the Aurochs would take you...  
I don't understand..."

a thief in the dark  
nightjars hail my departure  
no blessing, no sword

the truth: I can't stay  
her sandcastles on the beach  
his seashell temples

at the end, it's cold  
flashes in the dark marshes  
something like a storm

_I'm dreaming hip-deep in reeds  
as the flood recedes_

****

  


  


**Nine of Cups: Sabin Rene Figaro (Final Fantasy VI)**  


Saving the world would start shortly, but for the moment, they were drinking piña coladas.

"At first, I thought everyone was gone..."

"Nah," Sabin said. "We're as tenacious as cockroaches. They're all alive; we just have to find them."

Happiness felt radiantly strange, and Celes drank deeply. "You know, some villagers thought I was your sister or something."

"Sister?" Sabin laughed with childlike delight. "How absurd." He was covered in dust and scars, and the setting sun lit his short hair like a candle flame.

"No, no, I think I can see a resemblance," Celes said and drained her glass.

  


**Ten of Cups: Rikku (Final Fantasy X)**  


Tidus didn't know what was on his plate, but Rikku was watching him with a skeptical expression while Yuna chewed gamely. Obviously, he couldn't back down.

"What do you think, kid?" Cid asked.

"Mmm," Tidus said, swallowing. "It's...spiny." It also seemed to have tentacles.

Rikku giggled. "You know, the inlreh's eyestalks are a great delicacy among the Al Bhed."

Tidus drooped. Not tentacles, then.

Rikku thrust up her goblet like a torch. "Time for the toast!"

"Du fryd?" Brother said, sloshing up his own glass.

"To Home!"

"Du fydan!"

"To eyestalks!"

"Are they really...?"

"To family," Yuna said firmly.

****

  


  
**Page of Cups: Edward Edge Geraldine (Final Fantasy IV)**  


From where they stand, they can see two heads -- one golden, the other emerald -- bobbing through the hedge maze.

"And sonnets?"

"Oh, certainly. Although I always had trouble with rhymes."

"And heroic feats of valor?"

"Well," says Cecil. "Yes, she appreciates grand quests. Although, honestly, I've gotten more effusive thanks for remembering to warm her bed-brick. For her feet, you know."

"Bed-bricks? Dear heaven, the troubadours have been lying to me."

"And bringing her peaches in the morning. She loves peaches," Cecil says, ignoring him.

"Vanquishing man-eating giants might be easier," Edge says mournfully. "They never go out of season."

****

  


  
**Knight of Cups: Locke Cole (Final Fantasy VI)**  


"Break a leg," he says.

She does not hear; she is intent on her current campaign. Repeating her lines under her breath, she marches off to the stage with her head held high and her sword arm free.

He remains in her dressing room, which smells of another woman's perfume. The orchestra begins to play. He watches himself in her mirror. He traces random shapes in the spilled powder on her table: a cross, a spiral, a heart. Somewhere, a woman is singing about love persisting past death.

He suddenly smiles and wipes the patterns clear in one sweeping motion.

****

  


****

  
**Queen of Cups: Edea Kramer (Final Fantasy VIII)**  


"Poor, poor boy."

He stirred slightly against her knee. "Don't call me a boy."

She chuckled deep in her throat and continued to stroke his close-cropped hair. "It won't seems so bad in the morning, Seifer, I promise."

"Mmph," he said, but he allowed her to pull him up in her lap and sing him lullabies until his indignation was forgotten.

\--And the woman called Edea opens her eyes, discomfited by the rebellions of this flesh and its restless memories. Beside her, her naked knight mutters uneasily in his sleep. She remains awake, unrepentant but unamused by her host's censure.

****

  


  
**King of Cups: Vivi Ornitier (Final Fantasy IX)**  


That night, they put on a shadow play for him. Eiko did the voices while Dagger slid jointed silhouettes in front of Marcus' projector. It was an old fairy tale, but Eiko got it wrong. She gave it a happy ending.

He didn't notice. He sat in the dark, raptly watching as black figures struggled against the harsh light, which began to shine through the puppets as they grew bent and torn. He swung his legs like a child, as steady as a pendulum clock.

But when they turned on the lights, they found him still, the clockwork run down.


End file.
